segunda-feira, agosto 18, 2008

INSIDE the Hotel Becora, as they call Dili's prison, some of the 22 men who face spending the rest of their lives behind bars for the attempted murders of East Timor's President Jose Ramos Horta and Prime Minister Xanana Gusmao are starting to talk.

The Australian has obtained the first accounts from rebels inside Becora. None of them admits to shooting the President, even though Mr Ramos Horta had identified Marcelo Caeteno as his attacker.

The rebels, who spent weeks on the run before surrendering, had plenty of time to work on their story. Because they are all condemned by the deed, they all deny it. They admit one group went to the President's compound and another went to the Prime Minister's house but say, no, they never shot nor ambushed anyone.

Many East Timorese believe the whole thing was a set-up; that rebel leader Alfredo Reinado was invited down to Dili to be killed, to end the two-year stand-off in which he and his rebel band remained armed and roaming the hills in the country's west.

If the authorities have anything to hide, so do the rebels, who are protecting themselves and a hazy political group called MUNJ, or the Movement for National Unity and Justice, whose members spent the day before the shootings with the rebels and had supplied vehicles that were used to drive down to Dili.

On that morning, Reinado's second-in-command, Lieutenant Gastao Salsinha, positioned a second group of men in ambush below the Prime Minister's house. Some of Salsinha's group have admitted to firing shots in the air, but none has confessed to firing into Mr Gusmao's vehicle, which was reportedly hit by six bullets fired from four directions.

The rebels were part of a larger group of about 600 Western-born soldiers or military police who abandoned barracks in early 2006, claiming there was discrimination in the army leading to eastern-born soldiers being favoured for promotions.

The dispute took the country close to civil war.

The interviews with the rebels inside Becora, conducted by someone who must remain anonymous, are with key rebels Amaro Suarez da Costa, better known as Susar, and Gilberto Suni Mota, and Egidio Lay, who were part of the group that went to Mr Ramos Horta's home.

Susar was the first rebel to surrender after 19 days on the run. He says he was sleeping in a shack a few kilometres away from Reinado's mountain hideaway at Luala, in the western district of Ermera, when Reinado woke him at 3.30am.

"Suddenly, the major, he came to get me in my house," Susar says. "He just said to me, 'We're going to Dili. The President called us to talk'."

Twelve men went with Reinado in two cars, while 10 were with Salsinha in another two cars.

Susar says: "When we left Luala we drove really slow, because the meeting was at 6am. The idea was for us to go there, meet at 6am, talk, talk, talk, then go back to Ermera."

Susar says Reinado stalled for time so as not to be too early to the meeting.

Upon arrival, at 6am, they found two guards at the President's gate.

"When we got out of the vehicle, (guard) Kelimut started to arm his weapon," Susar says. "I started to think: 'What's going on? We came to meet the President and the security is acting in this manner.' So the major said: 'Calm down, calm down'. Major said: '(Where's) The President?'

"Kelimut said: 'Oh, the President's gone to exercise'."

Susar says he stood by the gate, apparently preventing those guards from raising the alarm while Reinado, Leopoldino, Lay and Suni Mota went in.

Susar claims the men were not wearing balaclavas, which is at odds with the accounts of the presidential guard.

Susar admits that two of the rebels - he does not say who - returned from inside the compound having taken a machinegun and an automatic rifle from apparently sleeping guards.

Susar says he never stepped inside the compound. "No. I didn't even ... go slightly in. My weapon, it was pointed down. We didn't go for a shootout. If we went there for a shootout, obviously I wouldn't come."

It was not until Susar heard shots that he loaded his weapon.

So how many minutes from when you arrived at the gate till when you heard the shots, from when the car parked till the major died, he is asked.

"Five minutes, maybe less," he says. "It didn't even get to five minutes. I can tell you it was really fast."

Was there an exchange of fire after Reinado was shot? "We never shot at anybody," Susar says.

"We retreated. I only shot up, as warning shots. Because if we just waited there, the Australian forces and the tanks would've closed all the ways. We didn't go there to shoot. I had to shoot up, to warn the boys to get out. They were shooting at us."

Did he see Ramos Horta returning? "I didn't even see his holy spirit. Never," Susar says.Susar says he cannot explain how the tragedy happened.

"I don't know," he says. "It was the major. We came because of him. And then he died."

Suni Mota's and Lay's accounts of the morning of the shootings are similar: they say Reinado was shot inside the President's home, after which they ran like crazy, not looking back. They say they don't know who shot the President.

Suni Mota and Lay were with Reinado on February 10. Both men insist no MUNJ representative was with Reinado the day before the attacks. They focus on a visit from Reinado's lover, Australian-East Timorese citizen Angelita Pires, who has been blamed by Mr Ramos Horta and the prosecutor-general for influencing the events of February 11.

Ms Pires brought four people with her to Reinado's on the day before the shooting: her Australian-Timorese friends, Teresa and Victor de Sousa, and their small son; and an older woman, Eliza Morato, who had arrived from Australia with greetings for Reinado from his relatives. Ms Morato took photos of Reinado and his group, which now form part of the investigation case.

When shown one of Ms Morato's photos, both Suni Mota and Lay identify a MUNJ representative, Cancio Pereira, standing with Reinado and the rebels.

MUNJ had acted as the negotiator between Reinado and Mr Ramos Horta, who was attempting to solve the standoff. MUNJ was pro-Reinado, and on January 7, resigned from a taskforce set up to deal with Reinado, claiming the Government was not showing sufficient will to end the crisis.

As the interviews reveal, MUNJ was indeed there, which raises questions as to whether it played a role in influencing Reinado to go to Dili.

No MUNJ member has been charged over the shootings, though Mr Pereira and fellow MUNJ member Lucas Soares have been questioned and have had their passports confiscated.

FRETILIN, KOTA-PPT, PUN, ASDT and other AMP MPs joined forces to amend the budget presented by the Gusmao de facto Government, to immediately start paying the liberation war veterans' pensions, at a cost of US$20 million. "Our proposal succeeded despite strong opposition by de facto Prime Minister Xanana Gusmao and Finance Minister Emilia Pires to the very end," said Josefa Soares Pereira, FRETILIN Parliamentary Party Secretary and MP.

Soares and FRETILIN MP Osorio Florindo put forward the proposal during the budget debate which ended on 31 July 2008, in the Timor-Leste National Parliament, because the government could not explain why veterans were going to be made to wait a further six months or more for payment of their much needed pensions.

"It seemed to us unjust and unnecessary for the government to continue to deny these impoverished veterans their pensions, when they have been quite prepared to make a priority of special payments to deserters from the defence force. These veterans in contrast sacrificed themselves and their families so that we can have the freedom and sovereign nation we have today," she said.

In 2006 the FRETILIN dominated parliament passed a law establishing the criteria and mechanism to determine payment of pensions to veterans and their families, but the collection and verification of data as to who is a veteran was the task of three commissions established since 2002 under the auspices of then president Xanana Gusmao. The then President continued to insist that there was insufficient verification for the database compiled by the commissions to be used as the basis for commencing payment of pensions to veterans.

"It was a source of frustration for us who have tried to promote the cause of the veterans, that there was this constant proposition coming from the then president, now de facto Prime Minister, that the database was not ready. Yet in late 2006 and in the first half of 2007, before the parliamentary elections it was good enough to use the database to award around 17,000 medals of honor to veterans and their survivors. This issue was politicized by political figures in the campaign, including Mr Gusmao, and FRETILIN was painted as neglectful and mean for not paying the veterans," added Soares.

"But when it comes to an outrageously high spending budget on largesse such as luxury cars for MPs, overseas travel for Ministers and others in government, rehabilitation of homes for ministers and others, they forget about the veterans and keep saying the database needs to be fixed. We don't accept that anymore and are happy that the majority of the parliament agreed with us. Now it is a matter for the government to cut out the fat it has for travel, entertainment and other luxuries to make sure the veterans are paid," Soares stressed.

To date only 238 or so veterans have received any payments whatsoever, with a tens of thousands still awaiting any payment, whilst living in extreme poverty. The FRETILIN government's attempts to pay the veterans in the time prior to the elections in 2007 were also met with a dead end response from the veterans commission, which was under the control of Mr Gusmao.

"We do not want any more excuses from Mr Gusmao and Mr Virgilio Simith, the Secretary of State who is the chair of the veterans commissions. They have had five years to come up with the numbers for the veterans. They have done a poor job and we need to have an investigation into the numerous complaints that have been made by both veterans and development partners who gave millions of dollars towards the process. Mr Gusmao and Mr Simith have to be held responsible.

"We insist on this, but most of all, it's the Veterans, including MPs who are veterans and supported our proposal for amendment, who spoke out in these terms. It's time to act. The government must act or be held further responsible for the neglect of the veterans, for which Mr Gusmao and his appointees must carry their share of the responsibility," Soares said in closing.

The budget which was rammed through by the AMP de facto government is currently the subject of a constitutional appeal by FRETILIN, and is awaiting promulgation by President Jose Ramos-Horta who has held back from proclaiming it subject to the court's decision. FRETILIN MPs believe that one of the few areas warranting a revision was in the case of the additional US$20 million, which can be accommodated in the revised budget, by cutting extravagant and wasteful items, and without any need to withdraw in excess of the sustainable income set by the Petroleum Fund Law rules.